


Children Are The Future

by Netgirl_y2k



Series: Keep the Bouquets [3]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 03:07:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7740988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/pseuds/Netgirl_y2k
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This isn’t a perfect world, Margaery, but I would choose it over any other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Children Are The Future

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place about five years after part two, and will be my last visit to this AU.

Sansa woke with a start when something heavy and moving at speed landed on the bed between her and Margaery. The missile turned out to be a small girl who proceeded to jump up and down singing what she termed the _Good Morning Song._

“Don’t go in there–” The child’s nurse followed, having been outpaced by her young charge. “I’m sorry, Lady Margaery, Princess Sansa.” The woman averted her eyes from the bed; it was not uncommon in the Reach for married couples to share a bedchamber, but Sansa and Margaery were not the most usual of couples.

Margaery sat up against the headboard, yawned, and waved the nurse’s apologies off. Sansa scooted forward and pulled the girl to sit between her knees. “Good morning, Lady Joanna.”

As the bastard daughter of Tyrion Lannister and a foreign woman of mysterious and disreputable origins, Joanna Hill was untitled, but she was also not quite five years old and Sansa’s manner of address was met with a delighted giggle.

“Will you do my hair today, Sansa?” she pleaded.

“Of course, sweetling.” Sansa pressed a kiss to the child’s tousled black curls. Joanna favoured Shae in looks, she was no smaller than other children her age, and Tyrion had told Sansa with not a little pride that he had reason to believe that she had inherited her father’s wits.

The nurse cleared her throat and Joanna scrambled over Margaery’s legs and clambered from the bed.

Sansa looked on fondly as the child was led from the bedchamber, and when she turned she found Margaery regarding her with a strange half smile on her face.

“You have quite a way with our little fosterling.”

“She deserves it,” Sansa said easily. “It is bad enough that her father had to send her to us for her safety. I know there are those unhappy with Tyrion’s regency and Tommen’s rule, but to threaten to harm a child to get to her father...”

When Tyrion had first asked Sansa to foster his natural daughter away from King’s Landing she had warned him that there would be talk; unkind gossip had followed Sansa and Margaery for all the days of their marriage. Tyrion had said it didn't matter; Shae trusted Sansa with her daughter, and Tyrion himself could think of no one better to teach Joanna the fine art of grace under scrutiny.

Sansa snuggled back down under the coverlet to lie on her side, automatically Margaery followed suit so that they were facing one another.

“Do you ever wish you might have had a child of your own?” Sansa asked, knowing that asking the question was like poking at a loose tooth with her tongue.

Margaery wrinkled her nose theatrically. “I am not overfond of children.”

Sansa felt a laugh was called for, and so she obliged. “Margaery, you spend half your life visiting every orphanage between Highgarden and the Dornish Marches.”

“That’s just a ploy to trick the people of the Reach into loving me.” Sansa gave an unladylike snort. “Truly,” said Margaery, “I am not as good as the songs make me out to be.”

“Nor are you as arch as you want your poor wife to believe; fortunately she already loves you.” Sansa pressed her mouth to Margaery’s and was just getting lost in the kiss when Margaery pulled back. “Do you–?”

“Hmm?” Sansa hummed.

“Wish for a babe?”

Sansa frowned. The answer to that question was complicated and… ungentle. “I was at Winterfell when Little Ned was born, and I saw the look on Robb’s face when he believed that both the queen and babe might die, I do not believe I could have borne to watch you suffer so.”

“Why would I be the one in the birthing bed?” Margaery asked reasonably. “You are the younger of us.”

“You have childbearing hips,” Sansa pointed out with a teasing smile. “I heard it said in King’s Landing.”

Margaery let out an outraged squawk and pushed Sansa back against the mattress, straddling her hips. Sansa bit her lip and let her fingers trail up Margaery’s thighs, pushing her nightgown aside.

Margaery smirked– “I seem to recall you making a promise to our ward; something about her hair.”

Sansa groaned and let her head fall back against the pillows.

*

Sansa found the ribbon one the stairs as she made her way down from the rookery. Joanna must have been playing here; the child had started the day with a truly ridiculous number of ribbons in her hair, but Joanna liked ribbons and Sansa had difficulty saying no to the whims of her ward.

She found Margaery in her solar where she was consulting with Highgarden’s maester; the Queen of Thorns had taken a fall, and was reluctant to take milk of the poppy.

The maester bowed to them both and took his leave, and Sansa offered the message she’d just received to Margaery. “The Queen in the North is with child again.”

“That's wonderful. King Robb must be delighted– _Oh!_ ” Margaery laughed. “I must have Loras read this.” Sansa knew that she had reached the part of Robb’s letter where he expressed the wish that his second born be a girl, because every boy ought to have a sister.

"Robb also spoke of sending Young Eddard to Highgarden once he's older, perhaps as cupbearer to Loras?"

Sansa expected Margaery to tease her about collecting wards and fosterlings, so she was surprised when her wife's expression darkened. “Is something wrong?”

“No, not really. It is only with Grandmother unwell she will expect me to take over her role of hectoring Loras about providing an heir for Highgarden.” Margaery looked wistful. “Loras is a romantic; there was little enough chance of him ever being able to marry Renly, but I know he hoped for it. Now Renly is gone and both scions of House Tyrell cannot be permitted fruitless unions.”

“Tyrion wishes to send Myrcella to Highgarden,” Sansa mentioned, her voice carefully bland. “They were betrothed once before. She knows about Loras, her uncle has made sure of it. And perhaps they might at least become friends.”

Margaery had once suggested such a marriage between herself and Sansa; before they knew that they could come to love one another, that at least they might be friends. 

Margaery looked at her with narrowed eyes. “Your dearest friend is Tyrion Lannister. Tell me, Sansa, do you believe you would be happy married to him?”

*

Margaery was dressed for bed and removing the jeweled pins from her hair with the help of a maid when Sansa returned to their bedchamber.

She had stayed up later than usual writing letters to Winterfell and King’s Landing. Outside the Crownlands Tommen was seen as a weak king controlled by his kinslaying dwarf uncle; south of the Neck Robb was seen as little more than a wildling raider. Hardly a day went past without Sansa receiving a message from one court or the other asking her to intercede on their behalf.

The maid bobbed a curtsey to Margaery and asked Sansa if she wished for help preparing for bed.

“You go to bed,” Margaery waved her away. “I can help my wife undress.”

Even after all these years, Sansa blushed. Margaery stepped forward, and Sansa turned away; Margaery swept Sansa's hair over her shoulder and began unfastening the hooks on the back of her gown.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier. It’s just–” Margaery pushed Sansa’s dress from her shoulders and she set to work unlacing her corset as Sansa pulled her arms free of the gown's sleeves. “I always assumed that Loras would be free to marry for love or not at all, and that I would marry for politics and produce an heir for Highgarden.”

“You did marry for politics.” Sansa's dress pooled at her feet; she stepped out of it and turned to face Margaery. “The alliance between the Starks, Tyrells, and Lannisters is the only thing that's keeping the peace, and it rests entirely on my being one of the ladies of Highgarden.”

“I married for love too.” Margaery almost sounded vexed. "There is little I wouldn't do for my brother, but I wouldn't give you up, not even for Loras."

Sansa tilted Margaery’s chin up. She pressed her lips to the other woman’s cheek, and the corner of her mouth. 

“I've been thinking about what you said, about whether I could have been happy married to Tyrion. Perhaps we would have been, and there would be no Joanna; or there would have been and I would be no more able to love her than my own mother could love Jon Snow. I thought about having to marry Joffrey or Petyr and how no number of sons would be worth it. I worried what might have befallen Robb if you hadn’t sent the Tyrell swords to his aid.”

Sansa kissed Margaery softly, gently, and entirely.

“This isn’t a perfect world, Margaery, but I would choose it over any other.”


End file.
